


Too Short A Date

by Rubynye



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Comfort Sex, Competence Kink, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Multiple Orgasms, Praise Kink, Prostate Massage, Service Top, Sex Toys, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 04:59:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6552022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That was absolutely certifiable," she tells him. "Take me to your bed."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Short A Date

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meatball42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/gifts).



> Written for Smutswap 2016. Title of course from [the sonnet Shakespeare gave Martha](http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18.html).

Her eyes are so bright, Steve sees as he shakes Dr. Martha Jones's hand, so richly tinted and so bright with personality, large and long-lashed in her regal face. As Bruce introduces them he glances down and up like he's looking into a light, and Steve can see why; he already knows how he'd draw Dr. Jones, the shading he'd use to evoke the silky depth of her skin, and as she lifts a finely arched eyebrow he realizes he's been staring. 

She tilts her head five degrees, maybe ten, but she smiles too, bright as her eyes. "What is it, Captain?" she asks, more than just her accent reminding him of Peggy so fiercely his heart aches and his pants tighten. 

"No, nothing," Steve stammers, trying to let go of her hand, but she closes both of hers around his. "I just, uh..." He glances helplessly at Bruce, who just shrugs and smiles crookedly, _You're on your own, pal_.

Dr. Jones keeps on smiling too, looking at him, into him. "Seemed you might've met me before, perhaps."

Steve blinks. UNIT, like SHIELD, works with the paranormal, but... "Have we?" He's pretty certain he would have remembered this smile, these eyes, this woman.

"Not yet, at least for me," is both straightforward and a surprise. Steve stares helplessly as Bruce goggles from the edge of his vision; she smiles wider, secrets layered behind her shining eyes, but just as she takes a breath to say more, Tony bustles over, loudly, brashly himself. He rolls onwards soon enough, dragging Bruce away in his wake, and Dr. Jones laughs, squeezing Steve's hand as she mutters, "Stark, always ridiculous." That seals it, he likes her already.

"Is he ever," Steve says, leading into a story about one of Tony's sillier attempts at flashiness, and makes mental notes on light and shading as he watches her laugh and smile. She tells him a story of her own about a badly faked alien corpse and some gullible intelligence officers, and in a surprisingly short time Steve finds himself invited to call her "Martha" and standing with her by the door to a balcony, on the edge of the noisy room.

Martha looks through the glass door, sighing softly, her gaze lengthening in a familiar way. "Sometimes it all still feels like a dream," she murmurs, then blinks as if she's startled herself, and looks up at Steve.

"Like you might wake up any moment?" he asks, confirming his hunch with her surprise in turn. "Like you're in the wrong world?"

Martha looks at Steve for another heartbeat, then says, "Let's get some air," and curls a hand around his arm as she opens the balcony door. Outside the breeze is fresher than the stuffy perfume-hazed room, the city glitters below them like a brighter reflection of the night sky, and Martha stands close enough to warm the air between them as they look out into the evening. 

Then she tips her chin up, mischief blooming across her lovely face. "I've had enough of this party, if you have," she tells him, "but it's between us and the lift."

Steve likes the sound of that 'us'. He likes the curves of her cheekbones and chin and everywhere he's barely glanced so far, keeping himself polite. He likes the hope of being a little less polite and maybe a lot less dressed. "I think I can find us another way out," he says, folding his hand around Martha's. "Trust me?"

A moment more, while she looks into him, seeing into him like Peggy did, and she nods. "I believe I do."

Steve lets himself grin, and steps up onto the balcony railing, keeping hold of Martha's hand. "Ready?" he asks, and when she nods he turns to pull her up, wrapping his arms around her as he leans into the turn, and falls off the balcony.

Martha doesn't scream. She clutches two fistfuls of Steve's shirt, her eyes wide and brilliant, her lips parted as the wind whirls past them. And she doesn't scream. Steve clutches her as tightly as he dares, hooking a leg around hers, twisting into the landing --

He crushes a bush with his back and Martha clenches her eyes shut, gasping a high punched-out noise, making him wonder if she'll make a noise like that when -- _Back on track, Rogers_ , he thinks as they tumble sideways down the slope, angling his shoulders and knees to take the jarring brunt of the force, to keep her from hitting the ground. They roll right down to the pavement, and Steve lands on his ass, a sharp smack sweetened by Martha's cushioned weight on his front. 

Martha huffs airlessly. "Fun, huh?" Steve asks as he loosens his arms enough to let her breathe.

She opens her eyes, her mouth pulling up into a smile halfway between scandalized and impressed, and laughs again, wild with exhilaration. "That was absolutely certifiable," she tells him. "Take me to your bed."

"Yes ma'am," Steve answers properly, and helps Martha up.

****** 

She undresses him, in nothing like servility. Martha takes off her jacket and boots by the door, strides through Steve's apartment and into his bedroom like she owns it, and switches on the bedside lamp. She reaches for him, grips his shirt by the collar and pulls it off over his head, and all he wants is to let her undress him, let her do anything with him. She smiles approvingly, dropping the shirt on his bedside chair, and briskly strips off all his other clothes. Stepping out of his pants, he looks at the light shining off her sleek hair and thinks once more of Peggy; she tugs his jockeys out and down in one neat motion, wrapping her slender dark fingers around his rearing dick, and he catches his breath and thinks of no one but her.

"Look at you," Martha says, laying her other hand on his belly, tracing his abs and obliques with her fingertips. "Like an anatomical model but handsomer." Steve feels his mouth twist as he regards the top of her gleaming head, shuts his eyes and concentrates on uncrimping his moue into a real smile. Since he woke up in a new century, it hasn't been that often that he's taken someone to bed, but he's learned to just let them look their fill at his perfect new body, to wait and see if they see him again.

"Steve." Martha's voice is just sharp enough to cut through his thoughts, just firm enough to feel all over. He opens his eyes to hers, bottomless as the night sky. "You're beautiful," she says, looking into his eyes, right at him.

"Thanks," he stammers, feeling like she actually sees him, "so're you." She smiles, pushing up on her toes, stroking his dick softly as she touches their mouths together. Unsure if he dares use his hands yet, Steve lets them dangle at his sides as he curls down towards her to deepen the kiss, and she parts his lips with hers so he can taste her warmth as she kisses him boldly and thoroughly, as she strokes him until he gasps.

Flattening her free hand over his keel bone, Martha gives Steve a firm push. "Lie down," she tells him, and he sinks into the brisk comfort of her voice, into her approving look as he obeys. With her gaze tethering him, he feels slightly less like the bed's about to engulf him in its marshmallow softness. "Stay right there," she orders, and pulls her top over her head, pushes down her pants and panties together, whisks off her bra and earrings and looses her hair with quick, economical movements. 

She turns to set down her clothes, slowly enough to let him look at the long sleekness of her back, the intriguing dark scar over one hip, the gorgeous curves of her ass; she tosses her hair as she looks back over her shoulder to grin at him, and turns back around, letting him see her. Steve lies there, hands open and empty at his sides, and just fills his eyes. Martha's body is beautiful, as he'd expected, but also a little surprising, more streamlined than he'd anticipated, her shoulders and thighs rounded with muscle in contrast to the soft curves of her breasts and hips and that lovely ass. Watching him look her over, she folds her arms, and there are a few inky little scars scattered across her forearms, like the pink scratches Steve remembers collecting as he and the Commandos struggled through thorny brush, how they vanished from his and Bucky's arms and scabbed over on everyone else's.

A tiny edge of Steve's mind wonders how a civilian doctor would come by such scars, what her duties are with UNIT. The rest of him wonders how she'll feel in his arms, pressed against him, plush and firm in a promisingly delightful arrangement. He watches her breasts rise and fall in an intoxicating heave, until her sigh cuts through the pounding in his ears; he looks up at her exasperated eye-roll as she tilts towards him, climbing into his bed, swinging her leg over his waist and gripping his wrists as she straddles him. "You," Martha says as she sets Steve's hands on her hip and ass, "are not very assertive."

Steve almost pulls his hands off her skin, warm and resilient as it is. "I'm no masher," he mutters, looking doggedly at her face.

Martha's eyes crinkle and shine, she smiles and leans down onto him. "You're an officer and a gentleman," she murmurs, an inch from his lips, "and I like that, actually." Steve opens his mouth, still feeling a touch outraged, and Martha kisses him firmly, bossily, tilting her head into it, pressing her cushiony front to his as she melts away all his smart remarks. His hands tighten by themselves on her curves, and she breathes a low, encouraging noise into his mouth as she trails her fingers over his skin, framing his jaw, enfolding his throat. Tipping his chin up, Steve pulls her in as tight as he dares, opens to her pushy kiss, and yields to her with an unguarded moan.

******

There are moments of clarity to be found within intense sensation, Steve's known all his life. They've come to him when he's been delirious, trembling in agony, wracked with ecstasy. One sliced through him, icy sharp, as he watched Bucky fall screaming from his grasp. He blinks now, shivering with heat, electric sparks zinging up his spine, and looks up at Martha looking at him, three of her fingers sunk inside him, drumming on his prostate, her other hand wrapped around his aching dick, her eyes and smile focused on his face. He looks up at her, thrumming around her fingers, transfixed by her eyes, and he's been so alone, he feels so seen. Abruptly his eyes ache.

"Go on," Martha encourages, her voice low and gentle, her fingers hard and perfectly merciless. "Go on, Steve. Let go." His whole body tenses, his fingers flex, he drags them away from her to grip the sheets, crushing it in his fists as she wrings him tighter, higher... his eyes crimp shut and his mouth falls open and he feels the cry vibrate from inside him, bursting out as he comes wrenchingly hard, all his defenses disintegrating.

He can feel aftershocks echo inside him, her firm fingers stilled within him and lying gentle on his belly, his own shudders beside her steadiness beside him. Two tears run down into his ears, his own gasps harsh and ragged over her soft steady breathing. "Oh," she says, and there's nowhere to hide his face before she softly thumbs away one tear track, before she kisses him more gently than he can stand. "Oh, Steve," she murmurs to him, warmth he thought he'd left in another lifetime, and "Hold onto me," rubbing little circles on his belly as he grips her shoulders as tightly as he dares, as he kisses her desperately and she buffers his shaking, softly kissing him till his trembling stills, easing her fingers out of him. Just as he feels steadier, she nips his lip, a bright bracing pain, and smiles over his mouth before pulling back.

"Oh, impressive," Martha tells him, her hair spilled over his cheek and chin like a caress, as she briskly scrubs her hands in the bedsheet. "And you take direction so beautifully. You're just marvelous." 

Her praise sends achingly delightful little frissions through all his post-orgasmic rawness. His face blazes. He tries to lift his eyebrows, pushing his eyes open, sees her smiling at his blush and feels himself blush harder, watches her grin as she watches him. "Can see right through me," he mutters, waving at his telltale skin, waving away her too-wonderful words.

"Lovely view," Martha agrees, and brushes soft lips across his burning cheek. He turns to meet her, and she pulls back just enough, looking at him like she's broken him open and laid everything bare.

It takes some effort not to drop his eyes under her knowing gaze, but Steve stares right back, not at her lovely throat or her shapely collarbones or her beautiful breasts, but right into her bottomless eyes as he asks, "And what can I do for you, Dr. Jones?"

She laughs a little, just enough to warm him that last degree to melting. "You know my name, _Captain_ ," Martha murmurs, and Steve helplessly smiles. "I'll let you know." She leans down to him, winding her arms under his shoulders as she kisses him, and as she spreads her fingers across his skin he cradles her sleek waist between his palms and kisses back... but his hands roam, and when she moans encouragement over his tongue they pick up speed, pressing her to him to better feel her plush belly and breasts and thighs, tracing the curves of her biceps and the line of her spine as they sink into each other.

Steve loses himself in Martha's lush wet kisses, her satiny sleekness, until she squeaks into a laugh and pulls her mouth away. He tilts his lips up, chasing hers, and she lays one hand's fingers across his lips, giggling as he nips them gently, as she leans into his side and wraps the other around his resurgent cock. "Even shorter than I expected. Your refractory period," she adds, pulling a long firm stroke, and his dick twitches in her hold, a deep tingle reverberating all over him. 

Steve gasps, opening his mouth, trying to draw breath for something snarky, and only comes up with, "What, you read up on me?"

"A few interesting papers," Martha murmurs, sliding long slow strokes on his cock, "a couple of history books." Down to thumb his balls, up to twist behind the head, knocking the air out of him over and over. "Nothing that came near doing you justice. " She kisses him hard and messy, bright teeth denting his lip, and tosses her head up. "In here?" She reaches for the nightstand and Steve's almost too transfixed by her long beautiful arm, by her breast's yielding slide along his cheek, to hear the question.

He muffles an "uh-huh" into her bosom, opening his mouth to drape his tongue over her taut nipple, and she breathes a deep low laugh, more than half a moan. Steve tightens his lips around her breast, settles his fingers lightly as he can around the other, just rolling that nipple slightly between two fingers, and Martha's pleased noise draws out across several syllables before she laughs again. There's a clink and a thunk, and she plants her hand beside his head and suddenly pushes back from him, wobbling as she straddles him, her breasts jiggling with gasps, her eyes wild. 

Steve really wants to ask for her tit back. He doesn't. He stills his other hand, and Martha wraps hers around his wrist, gently tugs it away and plants a soft lingering kiss on his palm before settling it on her hip. "Later," she tells him firmly, though her voice vibrates. "For now..." she holds up his vibrator, curved and ridiculously green with that flared base the pink-haired shopgirl had smilingly recommended, and as Steve's face catches fire again she says, "I've an idea."

"I thought --" She spreads her fingers, revealing a condom and a little blue-and-white lube packet, and he nods. "Well, then, I'm all ears."

"And a few other bits and bobs." Martha sets her free hand over Steve's heart, and his niipples tingle reminiscently. "Can I ... Steve?" He blinks and looks up into her steady gaze, her earnestly parted lips, her playfulness set aside a moment. "Let me direct you?"

"Absolutely," he says, and she laughs a little, shaking her head, a ripple down her hair.

"I didn't even _finish_ ," she tells him. "Of course you don't look before you leap." 

"Of course I do," Steve counters, feeling his smile widen, Martha's sweet weight resting on his thighs, his dick standing at ease up against his belly. "I just jump anyway."

Martha laughs so hard at that her shining eyes flutter shut, her breasts bouncing mouthwateringly as she recovers and grins and brandishes the toy. "I want you to get this in and turned on, right where it feels best, and because you're a showoff I'm sitting right on you while you do it. Then I'll tell you how to fuck me."

Her confident orders go straight to his dick, twitching it even more upright if it's possible. "Yes, Ma'am," Steve answers as he reaches up, and Martha leans down to kiss him again, then sits up nipping the condom packet open. For a moment he remembers how the paper packets would just tear under his fingers, and how much thicker and more unwieldy the rubbers used to be; then her clever fingers roll and smooth the condom down over his dick, and he lets all thoughts go as he groans under her touch. 

Martha shifts forward, humming a little thinking-noise. Steve follows her motion with his hands, just keeping them on her skin, not interfering with her movements as she rocks up and "mmph"s and pushes hot and rippling-tight down onto him, letting go a long moan-edged breath. She slides down, slowly and surely, until they're flush, easing herself upright with a lovely rich noise, and as Steve realizes he's panting already, his breath roughening between his parted lips, she murmurs, "All right, your turn," and hands him the lube packet.

Steve hasn't done this all that often on his own, though a few times more often than he's gone to anyone's bed, since. Martha's lovely heft is the best kind of challenge; she folds her arms under her breasts and tries to look imperious, but he can feel every quiver through her as he spreads his legs, hitches up his knee and slides the vibrator in, a little short of where he usually pushes it. She said 'where it feels best', after all, and there's enough pleasant soreness left over that he doesn't need to push it to where it burns.

The solid pressure, wider and heavier than fingers, has him gritting his teeth; he flicks it on with his slick thumb and chokes back a gasp, another, firming up his control between the maddening buzz inside him and Martha snug around him. By the time he drops his hand to the sheets she's trembling too, her skin glinting in the hollow of her throat and across the arches of her cheekbones as she leans in, just so, and sets her fingers around the base of his throat. "Tighter for faster, looser for slower," she tells him. "Think you can keep from coming till I tell you?"

Steve nods, gripping the mattress to brace himself. He's probably ripped the sheet by now anyway. "This is a helluva idea."

"Got it from another American captain I met," she murmurs, settling the pad of her thumb into the notch of his throat. "He was tall and pretty, like you. Much more forward, though." She leans in, tugging a bit, and Steve curls up to meet her. "I like you better," she whispers across his mouth, and kisses him, and squeezes.

Steve grips the full curve of her hip, and moans into the kiss, and obeys. Martha squeaks into his mouth and triumph flares through him. She shoves herself up, grabs his wrist and pulls his hand off the mattress onto her ass, rocks back onto him and squeezes his throat, and Steve snaps his hips up in answer. Martha's breath slams out of her in that glorious punched-out noise as she shuts her brilliant eyes; on her next breath she screams, dropping her head to his chest, her spine flexing, her thighs sleekly tightening around his waist as she pulses rhythmically around him. 

Martha's scream tingles Steve's chest, her fingers ease and he huffs and follows her order, braking his hips' roll though his dick already aches to race ahead. The vibrator makes it even worse and better, buzzing through him, all the way up into his delight-foggy brain. "Martha," Steve groans, hands spread wide around the glorious curves of her ass, his whole body aching to _move_ , the pleasure already billowing towards unbearable.

Martha gasps, and laughs, and kisses Steve over his pounding heart, lifting her bright eyes to his, eyebrows pointed wickedly as she slowly, slowly tightens her fingers. Steve groans, feeling his throat vibrate under her hand, the toy vibrating inside him. The sweet agony presses harder and harder behind his balls, base of his spine, and he thrusts up, accelerating bounce by bounce, watching Martha's face as her eyes flutter, as her mouth trembles in a delighted grin. . 

Another thrust, another throb, and her eyes flare open wide, shining white all around her bottomlessly blown irises, like he could fall headfirst into her for an endless instant -- and he feels her come again, wringing tightly around him, even before her eyes crimp shut and she shoves her face into his chest and screams again, swinging her hand up to clutch his shoulder, her fingers shaking on his throat. "More," she orders huskily, and Steve moans just to be told what to do, grips her hips as she rides him, gives her all the _more_ he can and pushes down hard, hard, so hard on his own orgasm.

Martha sobs and shudders and he can't tell them apart anymore, just feels her everywhere they touch, how she throbs around and over him as his heart bangs inside his chest. Every second the roar rises in his ears, the pressure builds impossibly inside him, he frankly _hurts_ with it and can't get enough of it, of her ecstasy buzzing into his skin from hers, the vibrator buzzing counterpoint. 

Martha's spine sags, she seems to shatter and melt onto his chest, she sobs and pulls both her hands away, and Steve's hips stutter, rolling too wildly to stop. A high wild noise flies out of her mouth as she turns her face up again, glittering with sweat and exaltation, as she cups his cheeks in both hands, as she shapes one word with her tender red lips, " _Now_." It's command and permission and release all in one, and Steve throws his head back and howls from his depths as he comes so hard electric surges blank out his vision, his brain, everything. 

Everything but Martha soft and firm, dewy and hot on his chest and belly, draped over him, wrapped around him, humming with soft laughter. "Wow," she murmurs, her cheek sliding across his skin, as he gasps beneath her comfortable weight. "Amazing," layers warmth on warmth, but he feels almost too satisfied to blush. Almost. "And more. I should find better words. More."

"Just stay awhile," Steve murmurs, tipping his heavy head up enough to brush his lips across the crown of her sleek head. She breathes out a soft noise, inhales on a question mark, and picks her head up to look at him with uncertain eyes, her mouth trembling with unsaid words.

Belatedly Steve starts to think he's said too much, and now he does blush, burn against warmth, until Martha smiles. "Tonight, all right," she answers, and puts her head down again. "Unh, I can't even move." She does wiggle a bit, and he lifts her up enough to disengage them, helps her slide down beside him.

She taps his dick, still throbbing and almost sorely sensitive, and under his hiss he hears her delighted, disbelieving laugh. "Look at _that_ ," she says, curious and impressed, while she briskly strips the condom from him, knots it up, and tosses it vaguely towards his wastebasket. "You're still up." She runs her fingertips down his length, knocking all his regained air out in a shuddering gasp. "Another go, then?"

Like always, Steve catches his breath before he expects to, even with Martha pressed to his side, the vibrator buzzing merrily, and his dick thrumming with readiness. He looks at her, as the imprints of her fingers tingle on his throat, and she smiles steadily up at him, curling her fingers under his chin. "I'd like that," he tells her, "yes, please." He turns his head just enough to press his lips to her wrist, and watches her smile shine.

******

Afterwards, they talk. Martha's voice is hushed and hoarse, Steve's throat burns sweetly, scoured out by screams, matching the lovely soreness inside him. He holds her close to his side as they kick the ruined sheet away, pull his blanket up around their pleasantly tired bodies, and talk.

"Saving the world's not easy, is it?" Martha asks him, her knowing smile edged with cost and pain, something like Romanoff's. "Don't worry, you haven't heard of it. It was a year that ... didn't happen."

She looks at him calmly, not asking but expecting him to believe her, and he does. "Stranger things have happened."

"Things that happened," and there's that thousand-yard stare in her bright eyes again, over his shoulder into infinity. "Things that didn't." She sighs plushly. "I found the man who gave his life for mine, since I could, since his death conveniently didn't happen." Steve... thinks he follows, despite pleasant drowsiness and Martha's lovely distracting warmth. He lifts an eyebrow, and she slowly blinks her beautiful eyes and smiles wide. "We happened. And then unhappened." 

Steve has no idea what to say to that. He swallows hard and looks down at his hand, bland and rough-knuckled on her satiny skin, which means he's watching when she threads her fingers through his. "What happened to you?" she asks, quite deliberately.

"Must've been covered in your reading," Steve mutters. Since he woke up, everyone and no one seems to know. 

"Mmm, well, books say one thing, hands-on experience says another." Steve looks up then, and Martha has tucked her other hand beneath her head, tilting herself up into alertness. 

So he tells her, at least a little, about becoming Captain America, about Bucky, about Peggy. Eventually he admits that he wishes he could somehow have found Peggy like he left her, warm and quick and strong. "I should be, I mean, I'm glad she's even still here. I wish I could have Bucky back at all."

Martha's head has settled to his shoulder, and now she tips back to look up at him. "Even if he were different?" she asks. "When I found my ex, when I married him ... I saw the man who'd saved me during a year that never was, but that year never happened, so that man didn't actually exist. The one who does exist let me go."

Steve listens, he does, but the answer echoes inside his head the entire time she talks. "I'd have him any way I could, as long as he's Bucky." And as soon as he says it he remembers the ice through his heart. "Not that it's gonna happen."

He watches Martha's eyes flicker as she hears the roughness in his voice. "Unlikely, yes," she agrees with the softest little smile. "But I've seen more remote hope _huh_ " as a yawn catches her and Steve grins. "Ah. I'm afraid you've worn me out."

"It's mutual," he assures her, and she kisses him for it. Eyes still closed, Martha pillows her head on his shoulder again, tucking her arm across his chest with easy imperiousness as Steve reaches for the lamp. The room goes dark but his eyes adjust quickly; propping his head on his other arm, he watches her snuffle and sigh and breathe, the gentle rise of her shoulder, the delicate glint off her hair in the dimness.

Usually by now he's tossing and turning in the too-soft bed, halfway to giving up for the night and getting up to get a book or check out the Internet. But with Martha wrapped in his arm he feels a little steadier, relaxed enough to lie there and watch her, at least until she opens one glinting eye and glares. "You're not on sentry duty."

Steve shrugs, opening his mouth, and Martha tips half atop him, resting her chin on his pec to give him a stern look. "I don't care how much you didn't sleep during the war. You soldiers are worse than doctors, you don't rest enough." She tugs his arm out from behind his head, and he gives in and lays it across his chest alongside hers. "I can never take a lovely soft bed for granted ever again," she murmurs, laying her head down. "Especially not one with such handsome company in it. Sleep well, Captain Steve."

"Goodnight, Dr. Martha." He shuts his eyes, mostly obediently, but his lids relax instead of bouncing up again, his breath steadies in tempo with hers. The bed's still squishy, but tonight, with Martha beside him, Steve feels safely anchored, enough to let himself drift off to sleep.


End file.
